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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
I liked this piece, in particular for the scifi/fantasy environment, and for Evin who displays a decent amount of personality, which I expect will expand further as the narrative progresses.
something to work on is the environments, sometimes they're sufficiently described and something they're not, leaving me occasionally confused. Since this is a foreign environment, you need to give the readers enough information to situate themselves when the scene or immediate surroundings change. The pacing for the chapter was generally pretty good, but some of the events felt either under-utilized or purposeless. His visit to the arcade felt like it served no purpose to the reader; it isn't explored, nothing occurs there and there's nothing particularly interesting about it on a conceptual level. You could remove it entirely without adversely affecting the story, except for maybe pacing. His meeting with the elf, conversely, feels important but perfunctory, and I would have liked for the time spent at the arcade invested here instead, developing the elf's character, so he amounts to more than arrogant, and the scene itself so there was more meat to their interaction.
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
The prose is solid and you do an excellent job of gradually ratcheting the tension through the chapter. I also enjoyed the inclusion of the voices, which breath life into a fairly common narrative archetype and increased my interest significantly. For critiques, I would say you use similies ineffectively and have a few habitual inefficiencies in your prose ('drew a heavy sigh' versus 'sighed heavily.') These aside, there are mostly small refinements throughout. 4 stars. Some thoughts that aren't necessarily critiques is that Levi's age is extremely nebulous throughout, and while you don't have to be specific I couldn't get a grasp on his generall age from his behavior. This is probably somewhere due to the schizophrenia, but I don't know how much and as a result don't know if his
maturity vacillates too-much to accurately infer his general ag


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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
There were some style choices I really disliked (the choice to use descriptions as designators, and then to repeat those designators throughout.) The main technical critique I have is the wordiness of your prose, which while not egregious was prevalent with unnecessary dialogue tags, and often stating an action or emotion that dialogue would convey effectively. from a more theoretical standpoint, the main critique is that the chapter doesn't introduce or explore any narrative or inter-personal conflict, which leads to it not being particularly because there's no meat to the events taking place. It mostly details a sequence of events and characters the reader have no emotional investment in, and which don't inspire a desire in the readers for something to occur, I.E some mystery resolved, justice meted out etc. And I should clarify that by 'conflict' I do not mean hack and slash, and sorcery, but something the readers want resolved, a discussion or something they can actively route for and against, something that builds involvement. There are some minor conflicts like Jay being disgruntled over the boys joining their expedition, but they are transitory and superficial in the sense that they wouldn't benefit the story to explore or deconstruct. Another minor critique is that Jay, Bian and Rosa are never permitted to just interact, their dialogue and interactions are entirely subject to the narrative, which doesn't allow you to display or explore their friendship, which prevents it from coming alive because their interactions are always in service to propelling the narrative and neer extend beyond that purpose. This isn't something you would want to dive fully into in the first chapter, but you would still want to touch on it, take a detour from the narrative progression to just have them interact as friends. This would build investment in them as characters, their dynamic (when a meaningful one develops) and through that the story.


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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hmm, I'm not that good at synopsises myself but I can give it a try.

From personal experience, the best advice I can give is that writing is still just writing. The same basic guidelines still apply: try to avoid cliche phrases and use powerful, energetic prose.

Now, taking your current blurb I have some suggestions.

Instead of "she brought some truths with her" try "she carried two truths with her." The specific "two" rather than the vague "some" makes the sentence sound more confident (which in turn builds energy, though you do have the echoing "T's" then.) As for the "brought" I switched it to "carried" to avoid a third T.

The next sentence is really clunky as well, but I can't figure out a better way to say it, "A woman’s value depends on how useful she is to her man and his family." I considered just cutting the "and his family" but that thought might be an important link to her Chinese culture. The other thing I considered was just straight saying what you, "a woman's value depends on her man." but that lacks weight and its intent might be confused. Maybe something like this,

"When Susie arrived from China two years ago, she carried two truths with her; A woman will only be as valuable, as she is to her man: and that spirits will try to deceive you into believing they're human so they can steal your soul."
The problem with this is that the second truth is clunky and makes for a real long sentence. the benefits are that the first semi-colon/colon makes the "woman value" a lot stronger. Maybe we could break it up some.
"...as she is to her man, and that spirits exist. They will deceive you into believing they're human and then steal your soul before you ever learn the truth." I don't particularly like the "and then" here because it makes everything after it feel "added on" rather than important to the sentence.

For the start of the next paragraph, instead of "she soon finds out things may be very different in Chicago." Just say it without all the waffling, "She soon discovers that things are quite different in Chicago." (Again because confident prose is more energetic and compelling.)

For the next sentence, you introduce us randomly to "Simon" which is confusing at first. We get the gist of him quickly enough, but he is still initially jarring. The rest of the sentence, mostly the latter, half also reads a little off. I don't know if it's just "behave as she please" of it "dress daringly" is also culpable. Either way, I suggest something a little more like, "the New Woman's right to act, dress and dance freely." I choose " Act" over "behave" because it's both shorter/harder (which tends to make a word naturally more energetic" but also because it's meaning is strong. A person "Acts" of their own volition whereas "behave" as a "socially accepted" undertone.

The next sentence is good, "Susie thinks the loyalty he demands in return is a small price-" The next part is a little run-on and comes across as a little cheesy. some of it is the name "Blood" which just feels out of place (and a little cheesy because it seems like the name of a mafioso who's trying too hard to be intimidating.) I also don't know what a "speakeasy" is.
A better way to construct it would be to separate his questions with a hard break.
"And asks here something.
"What do you feel?"
"What do you think?"
Something unfortunate about these questions, though, is that we have no idea what they mean. We have no context. The fact that she feels Simons demands are a "small price" also dilutes the power of these statements.

For the next paragraph, I suggest breaking it up more, "But Simon will never allow her to forget what she owes him/that he owns her." (you have a small typo there with "what she owns him".) "Soon enough, Susie finds herself fighting off her love for Blood even as the realisation blooms that she has value beyond her use to people."

The final sentence is mostly good.

I don't know if this will help you at all, though I hope it does. Synopsises are just hard to write, especially when I have little to no grasp on the emotions and story I'm trying to convey.

Either way, I hope you find use in this and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)


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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
All in all, this was an interesting piece. But there were a couple things that I noted, first, the opening ran-on a little bit. "With the moonlight at its brightest, the open field and the wilderness at the far distance look bathed in shades of blue, and even the strong night howler blowing across the little girl's face as she walks the field as if in a trance." I get that you're trying to set the scene and its works for the most part. The points where it doesn't are the last phrase about the wind (which doesn't make sense and seems to be missing an action of some sort) and the comment about a blue moon. On a really clear night/bright moon, everything is cast in a white/silver light, not blue. these are actually some of my favourite nights because you can literally see for hundreds of feet with the same clarity as in the day.

The next things concerns this phrase, "Being reminded of a woman in the heat of the battle,..." nothing in the piece thus far has hinted at them being in "the heat of battle" quite the contrary. So this comment is confusing.

finally, you have a small typo here, "she speaks in a language we do not cared to understand." The "Cared" needs to be "care."

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)
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Review of Time  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.0)
This lacked the rhythm and flow it needed for the conclusion to truly have the impact you wanted.
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Review of The Business Man  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
This is a very good, energetic and tense excerpt. The one technical error I found was, " to Henley and farther from him." At first read, I thought that "Henley" and the "him" were one and the same. Even now I'm not entirely sure they're not. If they are different, I suggest exchanging the "him" for something a little more specific like "my pursuer." (Don't use my pursuer though because that's kind of terrible.)

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)
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Review of The Lakefront  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. You had great rhythm throughout, strong emotion, and a good story.

My one grievance is with the line, "Little trees dot the ground..." which I don't really understand. Initially, I took it to mean freshly sprouted trees (because of the randomness inherent to the word "dot") but that didn't seem possible in an environment as nearly manicured as this. The other option was them have been planted for aesthetic purposes, but why then would they dot the ground instead of be strategically placed?
This is all probably far too technical for poetry (especially since the line flows so beautifully) but it still distracted me as I read it.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.5)
Hello, I'm just going to write my thoughts as I stumble across them. If they're invalidated later on then feel free to ignore my rambling nonsense. :)

All right, starting off with your first couple sentences, you have, "Bang. Bang. Bang. Talia Drake jolted awake, panting from the recurring nightmare that haunted her dreams." First, it is considered incorrect grammar to exclude the exclamation point from a shouted piece of dialogue or loud noise. I know you said not to worry about grammar but I wanted to make sure you knew that rule.
Second, you first real sentence, "Talia Drake jolted awake, panting from the recurring nightmare that haunted her dreams." Is a little iterative on itself because a nightmare (unless we're speaking proverbially) can only occur when someone is dreaming. Everything after "nightmare" is basically unnecessary fluff.

This, "He let out a sigh,..." sentence is a POV slip. Up until this point, we've been viewing everything from Talia's POV.

I assume that this block of exposition and backstory, "Their father was not only their only real parental figure but their best friend..." is relevant to the story, but it's coming too soon to effectively serve its purpose. We have no attachment to him or either of the characters you've presented up with at this point, so this backstory just feels tedious.

So, you have Talia freaking out over their father's absence, but never any mention of why his disappearance is frightening for them. All we get is, "he's gone" and we have no idea what that means. Did he leave on his own? If so why are they freaking out like this? Was he captured (unlikely because he left a note) then why aren't they calling the police? They seem too well aware of his absence, like it was something they expected, for her to be freaking out like she is.This isn't the time to be mysterious, you need to explain what's going on here.

All right, that's about it for the specific stuff.
On the whole, I think this needs a lot of work. You have a heavy reliance on Telling to convey your story which dilutes most of the energy these characters might have had (think of it like a joke, it's not as funny if you have to explain it.) Then you don't seem to have any hook for either the end or the beginning. The opening sentences are active, but someone waking up from a nightmare is far to common of a trope to serve as a hook. After that, you diffuse any momentum you built with their father's disappearance by explaining it away in the last couple paragraphs.
Beyond that, you have a couple rare instances of echo words, first with eyes near the beginning and then with "barely" a little later on.

I hope you find my review useful (and not too depressing) and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!Open in new Window..
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Review of Serpent lies...  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
This was good as a whole, but the first couples read a little rough to me. Part of it was that rhythm seemed to vacillate a little and some of it was the overuse of "night." Rhyming your words can help a piece vastly, but not if it always the same word, because then it just sounds repetitive.
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Review of Princess Diaries  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, I'm just going to be writing down my thoughts as I stumble across them so they might very well be invalidated later on. If that's the case, then feel free to ignore my rambling nonsense. :)

You have a good opening paragraph, its start immediately and presents a clear voice.

You also have a great concluding hook.

On the whole, I found this quite humorous and enjoyable. The strongest point for this piece is far and away your protagonist's voice/personality which makes everything feel alive. the fact that you spit through three or four charged topics in the space of a thousand words is also quite interesting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it could become one if you overdo it.
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, I'm just going to be writing down thoughts as I stumble across them. If some of my opinions are invalidated later on then feel free to ignore them.

So, starting with your open two sentences, you have active prose and an elegant description. This is a good start. One thing to consider though is that it's generally advised to present your opening hook immediately. I don't personally feel that is necessary, but it's still something to consider.

This sentence is a little clunky, "They all devoutly pointed to a chalkboard that bore the soot from an immeasurable amount of lessons." I might try,
"They all devoutly faced a chalkboard covered with the soot from countless lessons." Replacing "pointed to" with "faced" just saves a word. Replacing "that bore" with "covered with" exchanges a glue word (that) for the more active "covered" and replacing "an immeasurable amount of lessons" with "countless" just cuts a lot of unnecessary words. The "countless" might echo "lessons" a little, though, due to the double S's.

You have a possible discrepancy here, "saw that it was nearly twenty past six in the AM." I don't know where in the world this is taking place or what its surroundings are, but six in the morning seems very early for the sun to have developed an orange hue.

Another discrepancy here, "he had pulled over to the blinded window." If the windows are blinded then there wouldn't be enough sunlight leaking through to make everything glow.

This sentence feels inconsistent with what you just said, "Dante snorted, almost sure that his contempt was lost." Contempt means that Dante looks down on Andrew, but up till now everything you've written has painted Andrew in a positive light. You also say that his predilection for listening earned him Dante's respect. Basically, I'd change contempt to something else.

All right back to the time thing, if this school is surrounded by other buildings (which is how it seems at the moment) then the sun would have to be fairly well above the horizon line for it to shine into the school. Probably too high for six A.M.

A good solid conclusion with enough of a hook to tease my interest.

The only general thing I noticed was a few too many passive sentences for my liking. But most of them were written adeptly enough that I couldn't really "hear" them.



*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!Open in new Window..
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hey, it's me. I know it's been awhile and I sincerely apologise for that. I haven't had much time to review and what time I did have had to go to the people I'm exchanging reviews with. Without further ado, let's begin.

So starting off with this sentence, "'I killed two men today.' Willam said proudly." I don't like how easily William overcomes the fact that he just killed two men. Even though they were assailing him, that's still a traumatic experience. At the very least he shouldn't feel proud about it. I know his pride derives more from conducting himself bravely, but that's not what his words say. He's proud that he killed two men.
I don't think he has to be a shambling wreck because of it, he was trained for this, but he can't just accept it blithely.

This next thought it really nit-picky, but this sentence might need to change, "...cool calculus of wisdom to bring them freedom..." My problem with this is that calculus wasn't "discovered" until the mid-17th century (timelines may vary in your world) so I don't know if it would have been discovered yet or be inducted into common parlance. Like I said, it's a very nit-picky thing and may not even be an actual discrepancy. I just thought I'd mention it.

For this sentence, "while he pulled at the buttons of his padded armor..." Armor was never held in place by buttons, it was usually held in place by straps or maybe ties.

So a couple of things for this paragraph, but mostly this sentence, "She was very proud of my son. It was a fierce sort of pride and it surprised William's mother." I think you switched the "her" out for a "my." Beyond that, this is a POV slip which is considered a transgression. You can only switch POV after a hard break.

This paragraph, "" All I wanted as a girl was a comfortable,..." reads less like somebody speaking and more like an author describing a scene. Go for fewer details and simpler, less-artistic descriptions. Another reason for this is that as a back-country girl and a farmer's wife she would have a far smaller vocabulary and simpler vernacular.

So two things here, one relevant and one somewhat random, "May, tell us how you met Jonn...." So first, I assume that this is William's mother (the fact that you're using her given name instead of "william's mother" makes it a little confusing) but you never explain how or why she came here. The last we heard of her, she was still back at the farm.
Second, this whole segment feels just like exposition without true relevance. Neither of William's parents feel overly important to the plot right now, and certainly not enough to merit a history of their meeting and romance. A history of two people's first meeting works IRL because more often than not you are deeply invested in those people already, we are not invested in William's parents at this moment. They are periphery characters and we've barely had any interaction with them to boot.

All right, the timelines getting very confusing at this point, "and when I looked again upon the riders face, only then, I realised it was William." She is still telling about the past and we have no idea at what point it is. We don't know if William's been born yet or for how long she and John have been married, or if at all. The bit of dialogue I have above make it feel like a vision, but you never gave an introduction to a vision or any kind so it just adds to the confusion.

You have a typo here, ""Alas, that's all gone now" I replied...." I have no idea who's speaking.

You vacillate on the spelling of the bird's name, "Imperious" from "Imperialis."

This is the first mention of any rum whatsoever, "May thought the rum she was drinking..."

That's it for the specifics. All my general comments from previous chapters are still relevant. One new thing I noted was a habit to forget the possessive apostrophe. Comb through this chapter, and probably all of them, and add the missing apostrophes.
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Hey, I'll just be writing down my thoughts as I come across them so some of my opinions might be invalidated later on. If that's the case, then feel free to ignore them.

So, starting with your opening you get off to a great start. The opening paragraphs are energetic and present a hook that grabs the readers attention. This sentence, however, "The event that nearly caused the human race to nearly go extinct in the course of twenty-four hours." is incomplete. It explains what the Dreaming is, but since the subject of the sentence doesn't actually do anything it's not a complete sentence. This need to be connected to the previous sentence through dashes or maybe a colon.

Next, this sentence is passive and can be easily switched to active, "I’ve read a lot about it because I was always curious about the event." Maybe try something more like, "I’ve read a lot about it because it always intrigued me..."

I think this needs to be "texts,""If you read any of the text written on it..."

This is a passive phrasing, "While humans were being eaten..." and for a sentence that conveys something as important and exciting as dormant gods reawakening I think you need something active. The option that immediate leaps to my mind (though I don't particularly like it) is "yet, its arrival woke something: an ancient pantheon of gods..." Just putz with it a little and I'm sure you'll find and exciting way to phrase it.

this is another incomplete sentence, " Lastly, man once more able to wield magic." you need a verb. Passive would be "lastly, man was once more..." but I always suggest trying to find more active sentences.

I don't know what you're saying here, "Let me digress." because digress means to go off topic. Is he saying "bear with me" or something else?

For this sentence do you mean "clothes" or "colors?" "My robes have no clothes to represent either my magical discipline or my god."

All right, you have a great concluding hook but the chapter leading up til that point read a little slow. I think it's because most of this chapter was exposition which, while somewhat necessary to the final hook and story, also reads slowly. Adding to this is that you also have a fairly high amount of passive sentences which saps the energy from the prose and read blandly.
All in all, though, and interesting concept that has potential.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck.



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Review of Sky Below  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
You had good rhymes and great imagery but you don't really tell a story. Without context, these words lose most of their meaning. You probably didn't set out to tell a story (which is fine) but I like to feel a sense of purpose when I read poetry and this doesn't seem to have it.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you the very best of luck! :)
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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (3.0)
Hey, I'm just going to be writing down thoughts as I come across them so some of my comments might be invalidated later on. If that's the case, then ignore them. :)

Lets start with this phrase, "But here in this place of hopelessness, of fear, and even torment,..." Up till now, your opening paragraph has been really solid with a good opening hook while also setting the world we will be exploring. This sentence is more of the same and the only quibble I have is for the word "even." Even is a moderator word, its purpose in this sentence is to diminish the impact of what you're saying, but in diminishing it you also weaken it. The sentence would be strong (IMO) if you just removed the even, you don't need it and to have it in there diminishes the direness of this world.

Next is the phrase, "That is exactly why I wandered through the dark world,..." Here, I would remove the "exactly." Having it in here does nothing to change the sentence while also slowing the momentum. It is also an "LY" word, which are generally considered weak.
The second this is about the phrase, "...through the dark world..." Up till now, you've referred to the dark world with the more personal "this" and I liked that because it crafted a subtly more intimate relationship between the reader and the world. That's just my opinion, though.

This phrase is passive, "I was thinking only of getting to my mission," and I think you can easily switch it to, "I thought only of..." and thus make it active.

I also have a comment about the prologue in general. You make of several descriptive phrases, like where you explain what/who Ardon is. The information you convey is mostly fine (apart from the Ardon which felt a little irrelevant) but the thing about the phrase is that they're intrusive. They interrupt the natural flow of events to explain something. One or two every so often is fine, but when you have numerous in a small area they cause the story read somewhat jaggedly because you're constantly pulling the reader out of the story. Does that make sense? That happens here.

You don't need the "however" here, "By choice, and by calling however," because you said former in the previous sentence. I would remove it because "however" is an interrupter and will naturally interupt the flow of the prose.

I think this sentence can be written a little more active, "My focus was on one thing, and one thing only..." Something like, "I focused on one thing, and one thing alone." Or maybe something like, "My focused rested on a single objective." These are just ideas I'm throwing out, you can probably come up with something better.

"Just" is another of the "moderating" words, "until the sun had just started sinking into the landscape behind me." which are general considered weak. you want to speak confidently without moderating your words because that dilutes their power and impact. I would remove it here and just write, "until the sun started sinking..."

I have two things for this sentence, "Then, slowly, I started to inch my way closer to the enemy camp." the first is that "inch" is already a slow movement so you don't need the "slowly" at all. (In my experience, most LY words are generally unnecessary because they can either be replaced by a strong verb like inched or are simply unnecessary because the context of the sentence conveys the detail naturally.)
Second, words like "started" and "began" are delaying words. They delay the action unnecessarily most of the time. That's the case here. The phrase, "I inched my way..." is simply stronger and more immediate than "I started to inch."

I know this is a fantasy world, but it still strikes me as kind of strange that dogs would bury their dead, " I always wished I could bury every victim...." You don't have to change it, I only really mentioned it because burying the dead is a human custom.

I don't know if you have a dog, but their paws don't really crash, " I heard the sound of heavy paws crashing through the forest" Moreover, if they were going out to hunt, they would do so quietly so as not to disturb any potential prey.
(I see you mention their volume a little bit below. I'm going to leave my comment in because it does bear thinking about.)

So there were two general things that I noticed, and they tend to go hand in hand, and those were that you wrote this almost entirely with passive sentences and a lot of telling. Both of these are considered "weak" and the first of them is fairly easily fixed. Just have something or someone in the sentence do something instead of telling us they did it. Take the bit where you said the dogs were alive. You would get the same result by having them do something or anything. Have them jump or bark at their captives. Have them scratch at the walls or try to reach the reeds overhead. All of these things will show the reader that they're alive without you having to tell them.
Telling's a little bit harder to fix because it tends to require a new sentence. You have to show the readers through your descriptions and the actions that take place. Something things need to be told, but that generally only because the knowledge needs to be immediately evident.

These are the two main reasons I'm not particularly interested in continuing to read this story, but some of it is undoubtedly that this isn't my preferred reading. That being said, this was far from bad, it just needs alot of polishing to reach its full potential.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck! :)
Happy Holidays! :D





*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!Open in new Window..
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Review of I've been dead?  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
An interesting thought, but there's not really enough to sink into, (which is one of the reasons I don't particularly care for Haikus.)
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Review of Rainstorm  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I liked this. You had good rhythm and a nice word selection. You also managed to tell a story, which is something I always like to see, even in poetry.

There are some slight changes that might benefit the rhythm I think.

First, in the sentence, "to wash the dirt out of their eyes." the phrase "out of" is just a little wordy and clunky. I think this would read better by substituting that for "from." "To was the dirt from their eyes."

Next is the sentence, "When you opened up your skies." I think you can remove the "up" here without compromising comprehensibility and improving flow.

None of those suggestions have any backing besides my internal ear and should be completely ignored if you disagree with them in any way.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)
Happy Holidays! :D
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Review of i was here  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.5)

I really liked the rhythm and the word choice for this poem, but I couldn't really make sense out of it. The chaos and disconnect from phrase to phrase might be intentional, but it was still had to comprehend.
I do have one suggestion. I would remove the "cry out" from the "I have heard the voice of Freedom." I don't think it necessary to convey your point and I think that the simplicity of "I have heard the voice of Freedom" will ring a little stronger. But that's just my personal opinion.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck! :)
Happy Holidays!


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!Open in new Window..
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Review of Scars  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is pretty good. You had solid rhythm throughout and good rhymes as well. Your political affiliations might have shown a little bit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I especially like the mention of the time near the end. It's a small thing, but it finishes the story you started near the beginning.
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Review of Angels in Winter  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hello, I'll just be writing stuff as I come across it so some of my comments might be invalidated later on.

Your first couple opening lines are a little clunky. They don't flow easily from on to the next because they're all stand-alone sentences.

For this sentence, "They all battled against the numbing cold of deep winter." I don't believe you need the "against" as it is inherent in the word "battled."

This sentence also reads a little clunky, "They all battled against the numbing cold of deep winter." You can probably join this to the previous sentence for better flow.

I believe this "which" needs to be a who because you're referring to a living person, "which happened to be the seated soldier.

Up till now, Craig has referred to Bartholemew as "father" and I would keep it as such, "Sorry to disappoint you, Reverend,..."

This sentence, "The Grand Chairman does not discriminate." breaks the tense of your story. Up till now, it's been written in the past tense but this is present tense.

On the whole, this was fairly well written but it lacked a hook to spark my interest, both in the beginning and throughout. This was a pleasant read but nothing in it really made me want to read more.
Beyond that, the one general comment I have is that you might want to refer to Craig by his name throughout. By using titles like "the soldiers" or "the newcomer" you disassociate the reader from your character a little. Names help build intimacy, which in turn builds empathy and reader investment.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck. :)



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Review of I Am Vitruvian  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
You have good momentum and solid rhymes for the most part (with square and near being the only strained set.) You also had strong imagery and a compelling story.
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Review of Insert title here  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
I quite liked this, especially the way you used the same word several times in repetition. This had good rhythm and strong rhymes. :)
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Review of Delivery Man  Open in new Window.
Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hey, it's me. I'm returning your review from the other day.

For this sentence, "Snoofk pulled a sheet of paper off of..." I believe you can replace the "off of" with a "from" which will flow better and remove a glue word.

For this sentence, "said Carl, grinning wolfishly." I don't believe you need the "wolfishly." you already gave us a good description of Carl's personality through his physical appearance so the readers will naturally envision his grin with a touch of malevolence.

I feel like this sentence, "...And you can't afford to lose any more." is unnecessary. Popular depiction always shows Santa's elves as being short so the concept of this comment is already going to be in the reader's mind.

This sentence is little more complicated and might be most personal opinion, "...that bottle I can smell in your cabinet. How about it, brother?" Up till now Carl has been rude (which doesn't change here) but I feel like the second sentence diminishes it a little bit for this part specifically. I feel like like the simple, "I'm talking about that bottle I can smell in your cabinet." will add to his rudeness because of his brevity. but you can also go the other way and add more onto the second sentence so it becomes more taunting. Maybe have Carl leaned forward with a new grin, saying, "How about it brother? Want to be naughty for once?" (I admit that my adlibbing here is terrible but I'm just trying to convey my thought process.) Either way, its just a small thing and to leave it as it stands won't really hurt anything.

I don't know how large the glasses are or how hard of a liquor Schnapps is but it struck me as kind of strange that Carl, who is portrayed as quite the reprobate thus far, would cough over it? It might just be the movies talking, though.

You have a small typo here, "Carl’s face twisted into grotesque a impression of innocence" the "grotesque" and "a" were switched.

On the whole, I rather liked this. The conclusion was a little predictable, not expected but not surprising either, but that's not a bad thing considering the story in question and the season. The reason I gave it such a low rating as opposed to what I think It would normally merit is because there's no actual objective here. Neither Santa nor Carl really have something they're working towards. You sort of have Santa trying to convince Carl to do the delivery, but that's more of an obstacle and it only consumes half of the story. It needs something for the reader to hope for, a desire that you can fulfill. Carl and Santa don't need an objective, and one for them might even be out of place for this story, but you need something to invest the readers in these characters, something that makes them want to see the conclusion. I know I contradict myself a little bu ti hope you understand what I'm trying to say nevertheless.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the very best of luck :) Happy Holidays. :D


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Review by TristenKozinski Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
On the whole, this was a fairly intriguing start, but the opening paragraphs were a little rough.

You start out with passive phrase, "A steam veneer was the only shroud to the infinite stretch of support structures before Damien Black." which in turn saps it of energy because it has no momentum in of itself. this is a misstep because the first sentence of any story has to be powerful it has to draw the reader in and tell them to keep reading. A passive opening does not do this because passive.

The next sentence I noticed something for was ,"After every turn he would glance behind him, every time..." here to have two echoing "every's" and the second one is unnecessary. Every is absolute so you don't need to say it twice. Just write , "After every turn, he would glance behind expecting..."

This sentence has a minor error, "In the distance a sanguineous orb poised impossibly midair." In the previous sentence you indicated that the Actuator had arrived, thus marking the next thing to appear in this story as a relevant entity but then you use the generalizing "a sanguineous orb" (which is unnecesarily complicated if you're just referring to its color. Just use Sanguine. And if you're not suing it for just the color then you need to find a different word because the Actuator does not seem to be made out of blood.) You go from naming something specific to referring to it in a general sense, which can be confusing.

Next is the sentence, "The orb shattered, and in its tessellation created a liquid hiss and crack in instant vitrification." So there are a couple things with the sentence. First, I believe you are using "tesselation" incorrectly. In Lehman's terms, Tesselation is the arranging of differing colored squares into a chess-board like pattern, but this sphere is shattering as in going everywhere. Then you have it making a liquid hiss as it turns to glass. Beyond that, Tesselation and vitrification are two very esoteric words which means most readers won't have any idea what you're saying here. Finally, and possibly more grievously, there's no clear image of what you're trying to convey, it's just a knot of events that is difficult to unravel.

Next is the phrase, "towered above him oppressively." So I've discovered through my own writing that adverbs (verbs ending in LY) are often unnecessary. You don't need the "oppresively" here because that concept is already conveyed by the image of this orb towering over him.

This is another instance of an unnecessary adverb, " Slowly dark tendrils dripped out of the drones surface..." you don't need the "slowly" because "dripped" already has a natural connotation of slowness. The same goes for the next slowly further on in the sentence. Everything this slime has done so far has been gradual and icky, you don't need to add the "slowly" because the reader's mind will naturally envision it as such.

Based on the distinctive parlance and what he's saying, you don't need to designate the inspector as the speaker in this situation, "The inspector continued."

This sentence feels incomplete, "You continue considered impenitent." but that might be intentional.

Beyond those things, the only general object to comment on that I noticed was a reliance on passive sentences (basically anything containing a "was." I think most of these could be rearranged/rewritten to be more active.

I hope you find my review useful and wish you nothing but the ver best of luck. :)



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